FAO Regional Conference calls for greater action to tackle
COVID-19’s impacts across Asia and the Pacific

Ministerial Session
highlights the importance of supporting the livelihoods of the most vulnerable
people through sustained and stronger collaboration

On the third day of
the FAO Regional Conference for Asia-Pacific, the FAO
Director-General QU Dongyu, Government Ministers as well as civil society and
private sector representatives voiced concern over COVID-19's impacts on the
food security and livelihoods of millions of people, and urged for greater
action to overcome the food and agriculture challenges facing the region.

They spoke during
the Ministerial Session of the virtual conference, which is hosted by Bhutan
and aims to define the region priorities for the coming years, as well as to
elaborate strategies to fight hunger and malnutrition and advance the
transformation of agri-food systems, making them more sustainable, productive
and resilient.

"We need to
recognize that the food and agriculture sectors, including fisheries, forestry,
crops and livestock, and the families that rely on them for their livelihoods,
have been badly affected by the spread of the pandemic," said Bhutan's
Foreign Minister Tandi Dorji, who delivered the session's keynote address on
behalf of his country's Prime Minister.

The FAO
Director-General highlighted that small and vulnerable farmers must be at the
centre of the response.

"Smallholder farmers
and their families, food workers in all sectors, and those living in commodity-
and tourism-dependent economies are particularly vulnerable. They urgently need
our attention," QU urged.

The Asia-Pacific
region is home to more than half of the world's undernourished people, and with
the impacts of COVID-19 the number of hungry people in Southern Asia could rise
by nearly a third to 330 million in the next ten years.

"While great
strides had been made to reduce poverty and hunger by so many countries,
COVID-19 has upended the momentum. We must prepare for higher risks ahead of us
and make sure that there is sustainability in the food supply chain," said
the conference's chairperson Yeshey Penjor, Bhutan's Minister for Agriculture
and Forests.

Other high-level
speakers noted the importance of acting in two fronts simultaneously: revising
public policies and implementing practical measures in the field.

 "The
novel coronavirus has implications for local, national, regional and global
policies and it is important that global and local conditions alike are
recognized when confronting this pandemic," said the Independent
Chairperson of the FAO Council, Khalid Mehboob.

"The
coronavirus pandemic has exposed the vulnerability and weaknesses of already
fragile global food systems. We must take urgent action to transform our food
systems," stressed Thanawat Tiensin, the Chairperson of the Committee on
World Food Security (CFS), an international and intergovernmental platform
which includes the private sector and civil society and reports to the FAO
Conference and the UN General Assembly through the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).

Speaking on behalf
of the civil society, Chime P. Wangdi, Secretary General of the Tarayana
Foundation in Bhutan, acknowledged farmers across the region as "food
heroes" and "food frontliners".

"There is a
silver lining though in this pandemic. The health crisis made ordinary citizens
realize again the value of farmers producing local, healthy food, and
governments, of becoming more self-reliant in domestic agricultural production;
of shorter and inclusive food and value chains," she said.

Sustained and
stronger collaboration

The FAO Director-General
and many participants also urged for sustained and stronger collaboration,
including leveraging agricultural technologies and innovations, to end hunger
and tackle COVID-19's impacts

In this respect,
the FAO chief presented the organization's recently launched COVID-19 Response and Recovery Programme - aimed at
mitigating the immediate impacts of the pandemic while building back better -
as well as other key initiatives, with focus on innovation, that can accelerate
global hunger-fighting efforts.

These include the
establishment of an FAO office of innovation and the creation of an international
platform for digital food and agriculture, as well as the Hand-in-Hand
Initiative, which is supported by "state-of-the-art tools", namely
the Hand-in-Hand
Geospatial Platform and the FAO Data Lab for statistical innovation.

"The point of
all these initiatives is to get the latest knowledge and tools into the hands
of decision makers but also smallholder farmers, fishers, herders and
foresters. This is the region where a vast majority of smallholders are
producing the food and agricultural products that we rely upon," said QU.

"We need to
take full advantage of the digital age through innovative partnerships with
national governments, farmers, the private sector, academia, NGOs and many
others," he urged.

Several
participants, including Bhutan's Foreign Minister, conveyed interest in and
support for the organization's current key initiatives such as Hand-in-Hand.
Others acknowledged the important role innovation and technologies could play
in improving food production and security.

The FAO Regional
Conference for Asia and the Pacific will continue until tomorrow 4 September.
All sessions of the conference can be followed live via Webcast. The Timetable can be
found here and the Annotated Agenda is
here.

http://www.fao.org/asiapacific/news/detail-events/en/c/1306122/